Let me just reiterate this: It is now indisputably clear that Asrock motherboards for Haswell chips are superior to all the other candidates from the acoustical viewpoint. All the same, I am really disappointed by the revelation (at least to me) that fan control functionality in Asus BIOS is rather mediocre in stark contrast to their lofty price range.

I'm truly glad to have converted all of you to the denomination of Asrock.

Btw wondering on your signature, since you own a TJ08-E, have you tried controlling the AP181? if so whats the lowest %/rpms you were able to take it on pure bios?

As you might know, although AP181 is supposed to be voltage-controlled to some extent, it is merely a middling fan and not designed to be *finely* controlled by voltage. I was able to lower the fan speed of AP181 down to 100 or 150 rpm, below which Asrock motherboard failed in reporting correct rpm figures. I can't remember at which % of duty cycle (which is voltage in this case) the rpm was achieved.

After assembling everything there are two issues that are troubling me:i) the Seasononic P-520 suffers from electronic whining. I find this very disappointing from what is broadly recognized as a high quality component from a top notch manufacturer. The review on SPCR actually mentioned this, but I thought Seasonic had fixed this. Fortunately the noise does die down a bit as I move away from the PSU, however I can still hear it slightly over the noise of the FANs while sitting at my desk (my ears being about 1 meter away from the PSU in this position). When I keep my ear next to the PSU, the noise is much more audible (seems considerably louder than the -10 dBA mentioned in the review). Considering I'm not part of the 1% mentioned in SPCR review, is there anything I can do about this? Is there a chance that the electronic whining goes away after the capacitors have seen some more usage? Or should i RMA my PSU asap?ii) Not being able to control the two 120mm CPU fans on the Scythe Mugen 4. Both fans are 3-pin FANs that are connected to CPU fan outlets on the motherboard (1 4 pin and 1 3 pin). I would expect the FAN controller on the motherboard to do PWM on the 12V line or even scale down the voltage on the 12V line in order to be able to control the fan speed. However, nada. I guess my best bet would be to get a pair of quiet 120mm PWM-controlled aftermarket FANS and daisy-chain those of the CPU FAN 4-pin connector? At 20 euro a piece that's an other 40 euro.

The PC is definitely the quietest I've ever owned and is a huge improvement over my previous gaming notebook. However it is not inaudible at the moment. I want to see if I can reduce the noise footprint even further. Apart from the PSUs, the main culprits seem to be the CPU fans and the VGA cooler (30% is the minimum fan speed that I can set using Afterburner). Does anyone know of a method to reduce the fan speed of the VGA cooler below 30%? Any custom vBios around that allows this?edit: I am impressed by the ability to control the Noctua NF-A14 PWM, controllable speed range is 126 RPM (10%) up to 1391 (100%).

my best bet would be to get a pair of quiet 120mm PWM-controlled aftermarket FANS and daisy-chain those of the CPU FAN 4-pin connector? At 20 euro a piece that's an other 40 euro.

You have been warned at least twice, so blame on you. Anyway, Scythe's PWM fans should cost much lower than 20 euros a piece: obviously, if you want to stay with Noctua, their marketing efforts require you a premium.

logion wrote:

Any custom vBios around that allows this?

Currently YMMV: use a BIOS editor (KGB, Kepler Bios Tweaker...) in order to see whether or not you could actually lower that fan speed.

After assembling everything there are two issues that are troubling me:i) the Seasononic P-520 suffers from electronic whining. I find this very disappointing from what is broadly recognized as a high quality component from a top notch manufacturer. The review on SPCR actually mentioned this, but I thought Seasonic had fixed this. Fortunately the noise does die down a bit as I move away from the PSU, however I can still hear it slightly over the noise of the FANs while sitting at my desk (my ears being about 1 meter away from the PSU in this position). When I keep my ear next to the PSU, the noise is much more audible (seems considerably louder than the -10 dBA mentioned in the review). Considering I'm not part of the 1% mentioned in SPCR review, is there anything I can do about this? Is there a chance that the electronic whining goes away after the capacitors have seen some more usage? Or should i RMA my PSU asap?

As mentioned in the review, Seasonic reports that adjustments in the BIOS of some recent motherboards eliminates electronic noise completely with many earlier production samples. The settings are:

>BIOS set up to ENABLE ErP/EuP (S4~S5)>BIOS set up to DISABLE Audio Always On

logion wrote:

ii) Not being able to control the two 120mm CPU fans on the Scythe Mugen 4. Both fans are 3-pin FANs that are connected to CPU fan outlets on the motherboard (1 4 pin and 1 3 pin). I would expect the FAN controller on the motherboard to do PWM on the 12V line or even scale down the voltage on the 12V line in order to be able to control the fan speed. However, nada. I guess my best bet would be to get a pair of quiet 120mm PWM-controlled aftermarket FANS and daisy-chain those of the CPU FAN 4-pin connector? At 20 euro a piece that's an other 40 euro.

I thought you were going with the single PWM version =(, the single Glidestream 120 PWM is pretty good, its the version that was reviewed by SPCR and got the editiors choice. Scythe Glidestream imo is the best bet in terms of price, there are two versions, check the rpm range (i would go with the lowest). But if you are going with more noctuas, consider NF-P12 PWM and NF-F12 PWM both should work fine on heatsinks, check Noctua NH-U12S Slim Tower Heatsink as they reviewed the fan there, the NF-S12A PWM is more for case fans and might have trouble with heatsinks, but its up to you.

logion wrote:

The PC is definitely the quietest I've ever owned and is a huge improvement over my previous gaming notebook. However it is not inaudible at the moment. I want to see if I can reduce the noise footprint even further. Apart from the PSUs, the main culprits seem to be the CPU fans and the VGA cooler (30% is the minimum fan speed that I can set using Afterburner). Does anyone know of a method to reduce the fan speed of the VGA cooler below 30%? Any custom vBios around that allows this?edit: I am impressed by the ability to control the Noctua NF-A14 PWM, controllable speed range is 126 RPM (10%) up to 1391 (100%).

You can flash the vbios with lower settings, but the main question is weather the fans on the GPU will allow to run lower than 30%, there are a lot of PWM fans that they have like deadzone where lower than that PWM % it will remain the same, this can be seen in a lot of noiseblockers and thermalright fans (noctuas are different), the questions is if the GPU fans can or not go into lower PWM %.

Just posting a follow-up in this thread. I RMAd my Seasonic PSU last year and their service was excellent. I get the feeling that my repaired PSU (actually the shipped me a new one and took the old back) is actually quieter.

quest_for_silence wrote:

logion wrote:

my best bet would be to get a pair of quiet 120mm PWM-controlled aftermarket FANS and daisy-chain those of the CPU FAN 4-pin connector? At 20 euro a piece that's an other 40 euro.

You have been warned at least twice, so blame on you. Anyway, Scythe's PWM fans should cost much lower than 20 euros a piece: obviously, if you want to stay with Noctua, their marketing efforts require you a premium.

I'm afraid I missed those completely at the time. Interestingly enough though my second CPU fan (the one connected to the 3-pin CPU fan connector) does get properly controlled by the Asrock mobo. So I've ordered a Y splitter from ebay and will be connecting both CPU fans to the 3-pin CPU fan connector.

As far as the vBios editors go for lowering the gtx 760's minimum fan speed, I didn't bother as I fear to bork my card. Also, the 30% could be a limitation of the fans themselves. Strangely enough Kepler BIOS tweaker does state 20% as the minimum in my default vBios. MSI Afterburner always reports 34% though, even with a custom profile that lowers the speed to 10%. Also, the FAN profile editor in MSI Afterburner does have a dashed yellow line at the 34% mark; maybe it is limiting the minimum fan speed that you set to this threshold.

The PC is definitely the quietest I've ever owned However it is not inaudible at the moment. , the main culprits seem to be the CPU fans and the VGA cooler

when will people start listening to me???

What possible value does your post have to this thread? If you have something to contribute, please do so.

lol, just venting. I get frustrated because when i do contribute it seems to fall on deaf ears and then I see a disappointing build. I'll continue to help people where i can but i dont wanna have to beat people over the head with solutions either.

While I wait for the Y splitter to arrive I actually managed to work around the problem of the 4-pin CPU fan header failing to modulate my 3-pin Scythe FAN by just moving the FAN to the 3-pin AUX3 fan header. By setting up the same curves in the UEFI for the CPU fan (which has my secondary CPU fan on it) and the AUX3 fan (with my primary CPU fan) they operate more or less the same.

Now the loudest component of my setup is actually my Logitech Z2300 set that has an annoying low frequency buzz coming from its L and R speaker :s. When the speakers are switched of it's the HDD/VGA card that produce minimal noise; but they don't bother me at all (i.e. silent enough for me personally).

...I actually managed to work around the problem of the 4-pin CPU fan header failing to modulate my 3-pin Scythe FAN by just moving the FAN to the 3-pin AUX3 fan header...

The 4-pin CPU fan header isn't failing to do anything. PWM headers (unless designed to be dual 4-pin and 3-pin) supply the full 12V voltage all the time because that's how PWM works. Plug in a 3-pin fan and naturally enough it runs at full speed. Using a chassis or other motherboard 3-pin fan header is a fairly established workaround. Or you could get a PWM CPU fan.

Now the loudest component of my setup is actually my Logitech Z2300 set that has an annoying low frequency buzz coming from its L and R speaker :s.

Could be a crappy design, could be a poor ground path for the Logitech's power supply, could be a poor ground path from the audio cables (PC to active speakers). Unplug the speaker inputs and see if the buzz goes away.

If it doesn't, then try plugging the speaker's power cord into a different AC outlet. Even one on a different breaker circuit…just to see.

If it does, then try using a different set of audio jacks on your PC or a different set of cables, or both. Typically, the jacks on the mobo or sound card provide a much cleaner path than the front case jacks (with dubiously shielded cables running thru the PC).

It seems a ground loop. Replace the socket where you connect its power plug until you find one that doesn't. In the worst case is related to the audio cables that goes into it and a fix may not be possible (short of DIY opening the speaker box), buying a different speaker set may be a better option.

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